The "Introduction" and "Key Points" for this chapter were summarized by an AI editor based on the main text below; they are not words spoken by Mike during his lectures. The main text comes from Mike's commentary, and the blockquotes are Seth's original words (the portions Mike read aloud).
Introduction
This chapter discusses the relationship between reality and consciousness: the physical world can only be experienced from an individual viewpoint; the unconscious is simply what is not perceived by current awareness. The inner structure is the structure of consciousness, and the universe is only one patch within a larger reality. During sleep, consciousness adjusts itself the way one tunes a piano, determining the range of perception after waking. The inner structure changes with experience, and different versions of consciousness may have intersections. Humanity draws arbitrary boundaries between species and life; neglected psychological lives combine with attributes of the environment and are experienced as sprites or talismans. The private session touches on Jane's fears and self-limitations, and includes a poem.
Key Points of This Chapter
- The physical world can only be experienced from an individual viewpoint; the universe as perceived is only one slice of a larger reality.
- The word "unconscious" is meaningless; there are only versions of consciousness that can be perceived and versions that cannot.
- Inner structures are structures of consciousness; deep questions such as time and the origin of the universe can only be explored by acknowledging inner structures.
- In sleep, consciousness adjusts itself the way one tunes a piano; after waking, only the part of experience that has been tuned can be perceived.
- Humanity's divisions of species and the boundaries of life are arbitrary; the neglected combinations of psychological life and environmental attributes are experienced as sprites or talismans.
Main Text
Hello everyone, I am Mike.
Today we continue sharing Seth Book Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment, Volume 2, Session 938. This session began on Tuesday, November 24, 1981, at 9:07 p.m. Rob said they had been waiting for the session since about 8:30, but when he actually spoke for Seth, he used many long discourses. Rob felt that tonight, through a wonderful discussion, Seth touched on several key insights into the nature of reality, and this subject had never been spoken of this well by anyone before. Truly brilliant. Let us look at the content of this session.
The World Can Only Be Experienced from Your Own Point of View
Seth says:
Of course, as you understand it, the entire picture of physical life must be experienced from your own point of view.
That is to say, this physical world, you can only experience it from your own focus of consciousness, from your present point of view. No matter how complex this world is, no matter how multi-layered it is, you can only experience the part that you are able to perceive. How much you can perceive is how much you can experience. This must be from your own angle, from your own point of view, and this must be made clear. What others experience is their world, their life, their existence; what you experience is yours. So here you must understand this point: do not force others to agree with your point of view, and do not simply echo the views of others. How you experience it is up to you. Remember this.
But you should understand its complexity. Although you stand from the physical angle, that is, from the angle of your physical body, from the angle of eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body to experience this world, you must understand that this world is not merely the part that you as a physical being can perceive. You must realize that it is actually very complex, that it has many different layers, its complexity, its inner laws, its order, the order and structure of this world, or the solemn magnificence of its design. Although you can only feel the small piece that you can cognize, you must understand that it is a part of the whole great system, and only one example given among the infinite realities.
He says:
Even if you recognize the complexity of the universe you are in, the exquisiteness of its construction, the refinement of its structure, the magnificence and solemnity of its design, this is only one universe.
No matter how complex, how sacred, how magnificent, how brilliant, how endless and immeasurable it is, it is forever and ever only one universe among infinite universes. You must understand this point: it is only an example.
And those other realities, those other worlds that you cannot perceive, each one has its own essence, composed of that essence of its own and the preferences and characteristics of the essence of its own consciousness. Those universes or worlds are composed of the consciousness of their world, the preferences of their consciousness, the essence of their consciousness, and the characteristics of their consciousness. Just as our universe is composed of the attributes, preferences, and characteristics of our universe. So what are the attributes, preferences, and characteristics of our universe? They are the basic laws of this universe: spontaneity, value fulfillment, and so on. But those apply only to our universe, not to those other universes, because the kinds of consciousness in those universes are fundamentally different from ours.
Consciousness also has infinite varieties. Here, the infinite varieties of consciousness do not refer to the consciousness of flowers and grass, or the consciousness of cats and dogs, or the consciousness of atoms. That is not what it means. It refers to the consciousness in other worlds, which is fundamentally different from our consciousness in essence. For example, their units of consciousness are not the same kind as ours; they are fundamentally different in essence. The essences of reality that Seth talks about, units of consciousness, emotional energy units, meaning units, are all aimed at our physical world.
He also talks about many things within our world. This universe, the universe we speak of, does not only refer to the physical part within our universe, not only the reality world we observe. It refers to the universe we can perceive, including the consciousness level, the physical level, or the non-physical level, all included. Remember this: it is not just this three-dimensional world. Our universe itself is a multidimensional, mixed multidimensional consciousness construct. Also, the world he speaks of does not refer to concepts like four-dimensional space or five-dimensional space outside this physical world, but a completely different universe. We must understand this.
Nothing Is Unconscious
He said:
In certain respects, the word "unconscious" is meaningless.
There is nothing in this world that is unconscious, so the word itself has no meaning. It is only a matter of whether you can perceive it or not. He said:
Of course, consciousness has endless, inexhaustible versions.
You must remember this. What you call the unconscious may simply be the part that your version cannot perceive, but that does not mean those things are unconscious.
Together with their own worlds, together with consciousness itself, forming the organization of meaning and purpose.
Different consciousnesses communicate with different worlds, and within such a different realm of consciousness, there are different realities, different universes. Different universes each have their own purpose and meaning, forming different versions of consciousness. The versions of consciousness here are not simply this version of consciousness; he is speaking of something higher and broader.
Some of these are mixed with your own.
Some of those different versions of consciousness are mixed together with our version of consciousness; they have intersections, just like the dream time we can feel, the out-of-body time, the invisible time, the time of those consciousnesses, the things in those spaces of awareness — those all have intersections with us. But that does not mean all of them intersect with us; there are many that have no intersection with us at all. You need to understand this.
So this universe, or reality, is open, not closed, which means there is the possibility of mutual connection and linkage among them. It does not mean that "open" implies that the consciousnesses of all different worlds, the consciousnesses of all different universes, are necessarily connected. Remember, some of them, or even a large portion of them, have no relation to us whatsoever, and in your consciousness you can never have any intersection with them; while some do have intersections with us, even if they are extraterrestrial, even if they belong to another space-time, another universe, they still have intersections with us. This is very interesting.
Inner Structure Is the Structure of Consciousness
Inner structure is the structure of consciousness.
Remember, he is emphasizing again: what we call inner structure, what we call the inner world, the inner world, or those inner worlds out of which our physical world emerges—first of all, it is a structure of consciousness. Everything is related to consciousness.
And the deeper questions can ultimately be discussed only by acknowledging the existence of inner structure.
When we want to explore very deep questions, we can only proceed from inner structure, or you have to acknowledge the existence of this inner structure. If you want to explore some deep-level questions but only acknowledge the outer structure and do not acknowledge that there is an inner structure, then you cannot possibly explore deeper topics. You can only remain at the level where scientists currently remain.
Then he says, "Please wait for us a moment," and continues:
The nature of time, the questions about the beginning and end of the universe, these cannot be definitively discussed by studying the outer conditions of life.
You want to discuss the nature of life, how the universe began—these essential questions—you cannot, through the outer conditions of life—we now have life, life has these outer conditions, your environment, your physical body, the society you live in—study and understand how the universe came to be, what time is all about. These can never be answered that way. If you want to study these questions, you must set aside the outer structure and outer forms of life, and study the inner structure and inner forms of life. That is what is truly important.
For physical references themselves are only the concrete manifestations of inner psychological activity.
These outer things you study—the physical world—are only a manifestation of your inner world. Its root is in your inner world. If you abandon the root and chase the branches, studying outer things without studying inner things, it is meaningless.
You perceive the universe only when it intrudes upon your awareness. But what lies beyond that awareness has always remained unknown to you.
The universe you perceive—only when this universal reality intrudes upon, encroaches upon the range of your awareness, can you perceive it. What lies beyond the range of your awareness, you have never known. In other words, the universe as we think of it can be described as a larger multidimensional reality intruding into our three-dimensional perceptual system, so you perceive it as three-dimensional. If your perceptual system were upgraded to four dimensions, then you would see the image of this reality intruding into a four-dimensional perceptual system. If your perceptual system were upgraded to five dimensions, then you would sense the existence of a five-dimensional world, a five-dimensional universe.
So how many dimensions is this universe, ultimately? This universe is a multidimensional existence. Your cognition—that is, your consciousness, your perceptual dimension—to whatever dimension it reaches, the world you perceive is of that many dimensions. So in the final analysis, it comes down to your awareness, your capacity for awareness, to what depth and breadth you can be aware.
So it seems to you that the world began at some point in the past.
If you only use three-dimensional perception, that is how it is—as if that reality intruded into our space of this reality, and you feel that the world came into being at that time; or rather, it must have begun long ago, before your perceptual space, before what our scientists consider to be the existence of humanity, the universe already existed. That is what you think.
The Universe You Perceive Is Only One Slice of the Cake
At 9:18, he continued after a pause, a full minute long. Then he said:
But that would be like assuming one slice of a cake is the whole cake, baked in the oven, and perhaps eaten in a single afternoon.
He gave a very simple example. The universe you think you know is like one slice of an entire cake. You think this one slice is the whole universe, and then you finish eating the cake in one afternoon. From the cake starting to bake in the oven, to you finally eating it, you think that is the whole thing—that is all the universe amounts to.
Why did he use a cake as an example? Because this is an English idiom. What he actually meant in the original English was "piece of cake." If you translate it as "cake," you might not understand what he was trying to say. "Piece of cake" means "a trivial matter." What he wanted to say was this: the vast universe you currently believe in is, to the entire real universe, just a trivial little thing, not worth mentioning. But if you translate it as "cake," you might have trouble understanding why he used such a phrase. He was saying you are making a mountain out of a molehill—this so-called vast universe of yours is merely an insignificant thing within the whole universe. You could also say the universe is a big cake, and the universe you recognize is only one thin slice of that cake. The meaning is the same.
The Intermixing and Blending of Inner Structures
Setting aside the outer structure, he says:
The inner structure of reality involves an entirely different kind of experience.
It is different from our outer sensations.
It has organizational patterns that are intermixed and blended at every conceivable point.
The most distinctive difference between the inner structure and the outer one is that at every conceivable point it is both intermixed and blended. What do intermixed and blended organizational patterns mean? These two concepts are not the same. Intermixed means different patterns together—for example, I have five patterns, and these five patterns are together, but each one remains distinctly clear. What does blended mean? These five patterns combine together to form one pattern, and what you ultimately perceive is a single pattern.
And he says that your inner world, your inner structure—the most miraculous thing about it, and the thing most different from our outer world—is this: it is both intermixed and blended. It is multiple patterns blended together, presenting outwardly as if it were one pattern, and yet each pattern within it remains distinctly clear, each forming its own independent structure; and each of these independent structures is also blended together, appearing as if it were a single structure. So here he uses "both intermixed and blended," and this is true at every point.
In your inner world, the inner structure is the inner world of the human being, and every point is in this state, which is why it sometimes transcends our three-dimensional world's cognition of outer structures. In our outer structure, if we say this point is a mechanical structure, then it cannot also be a chemical reaction. Yet the most miraculous thing is that he says this point has both a mechanical structure and a chemical reaction. At our human level of understanding, this is incomprehensible. If you then add atomic reactions, nuclear reactions, fission or fusion, and then biological reactions, neural reactions, consciousness reactions, and so on, all blended together, it becomes even harder to understand. In our outer structure there can only be one pattern—either this pattern or that pattern; if it is a mixture of multiple patterns, we can still take it apart and make it clear. But in our inner structure this is not the case. Every point is such a contradictory entity, both blended and intermixed. So you need to deeply understand what this inner state is like.
While You Sleep, You Tune Your Consciousness Like Tuning a Piano
He said:
So when you sleep, you tune your consciousness like you tune a piano.
While you are sleeping, you are tuning your consciousness, like tuning a piano. A piano has to be tuned before it can be played.
So that when you wake up, you can use your consciousness to clearly perceive the appropriate notes and tonal qualities that accumulate into material experience.
When you sleep, what is your consciousness tuning? It is tuning the appropriate notes and tonal qualities that, after you wake, you can perceive as those that accumulate into material experience.
In plain terms: when you dream, you go through many inner events, and your inner structure is operating. After you wake up, you are certainly operating in the outer structure, experiencing outer events, people, and environments. How are you able to sense outer things? Because while you were sleeping, within your inner structure, it first tuned and arranged which things you should experience during the day. To put it bluntly, the things you should experience and perceive in the outer daytime are there because you already tuned them at night. During the day, you are able to hear those tones, tonal qualities, and pitches; the others you cannot hear — they are either noise, or you ignore them. So you only respond to, or are able to perceive, the specific tone and melody of this piano that you have tuned. Those that were not tuned, those whose frequencies did not match your piano, also happened, but you do not treat them as real material reality happening, so they escape your daytime perceptual system, your cognitive framework. But in your dreams you have experienced all of them; they are all there.
This example may be a bit hard to understand, so let me give a more vivid one. When you tune a piano at night, don't you have to tune all kinds of notes? Do-re-mi-fa-sol, every key's pitch has to be tuned. While tuning, the pitch is not the same; there are highs and lows, and you can sense all kinds of overtones and related tones. But once you finish tuning, when day breaks and the piano is tuned, the notes this piano plays can only be the tone and pitch you tuned. The notes played during the day are there because you tuned them at night; when you press this key, it can only produce this one tuned single note, and the reason is that you tuned it at night. Actually, pressing this key could originally produce many notes; above this tone there are many overtones, but after tuning at night, only this one note remains.
He uses this example to help you understand the relationship between our inner world, or inner structure, and the outer structure. Originally you could perceive a great deal, and in dreams, while sleeping, you did perceive a great deal; but when you wake up, when the things of the material world are there, you can only experience that one single version. You can no longer hear the overtones of that key; you can only hear the note after it has been tuned.
Inner Structures Change Because of Your Experience
Those inner fields of reference in which you exist completely alter themselves as your experience is added to them.
This point is very important. Your inner structure is not fixed and unchanging. When you add your experience to your inner structure, it changes.
What does this mean? Because your inner structure is mixed and intermingled at every point. This mixing and intermingling includes your cognition in the three-dimensional world, and it also includes your past experience. In that case, your personal experience will produce fundamental changes in your inner structure. In other words, this inner structure of yours simply does not have a fixed structure or pattern. It is not as fixed as you imagine the outer structure to be -- for example, a table is a table, it cannot become a sofa, it will always be a table. Of course a table can also be sat upon, but it is a completely different concept from a sofa. But in the inner world, whether it is a table or a sofa depends on your cognition. If you feel it is a sofa, then it is a sofa; if you feel it is a table, then it is a table. In other words, it is both a table and a sofa. This example is not quite apt, but I just want you to understand what the inner world is really like.
When your experience is added to your inner world, the inner world itself changes. To put it bluntly, when you go to cognize the inner world, your cognition, including your cognition of the outer world, will influence the changes in your inner structure. They are interconnected. So you should never imagine that your inner structure is something fixed, unchanging, like a solid structure. Your inner structure is like water, like an energy field, changing at every moment, influenced by every single point. If it is a field, then the influence of any single point will affect the changes of the entire field. This is its true appearance. So do not think or imagine that some transparent structure, or some crystal-clear inner structure, exists -- it does not exist.
And your own identity, as you knew it before this birth, lies couched within that reference.
The you that you think you are, before you were born, was already there within that inner structure. Within this inner structure exists your identity, but it is not dead, not unchanging, not a fixed structure. It is something that, after you are born, as your feelings toward the inner and outer worlds differ, can change and influence the inner you, your identity. So you have an invisible structure that exists. "Couched" means lying there quietly. That identity of yours already exists within the inner structure, but it will also be influenced and changed by the things you experience. That is the relationship between them.
He says:
You are a conscious version of yourself.
You are merely a conscious version of the real you. And how many versions do you have? You have many versions.
Contemporaries and Other Ways of Consciousness
First of all, you are a version of consciousness, a focus of consciousness.
It creates contemporary reality together with all of your contemporaries.
What does "contemporaries" mean here? It means those in your environment or the people around you. For example, you have a version of consciousness, and this is a version of your consciousness in this space and time. And this version of consciousness, together with the surrounding environment -- the cats, dogs, flowers, grass, animals, plants, the material world, the environment -- they are all contemporaries of this version, and together they create the reality of the space and time they are in.
He says:
When I use the term "contemporaries," I mean all species... You understand your own consciousness in a certain way, but it is also quite possible to understand the consciousness of the world in other ways.
You understand your own consciousness in your own way, but you do not understand it in a fixed way; you can also understand the consciousness of the world in other ways.
You may not quite understand this sentence. You use a certain way to perceive your consciousness -- you can gain a general understanding of your consciousness through logical reasoning, through dreaming, through learning, or through out-of-body experiences. Since we began studying the Seth material, your consciousness has already iterated through many versions. Without you even noticing, your consciousness has evolved from version 1 to version 3.8, 4.7, or 12. Everyone's consciousness is iterating without them noticing. This iteration does not have a clear division saying what version segment this is; I am just using this example to tell you that you have version iterations. This is how you may use a certain different way to look at your own consciousness.
But you can use one method to look at your own consciousness, so how do you go about understanding this world? How do you understand other species, how do you understand this environment? When you go to understand the world, you can still use a way completely different from the way you understand your own consciousness. You cannot use the method you use to understand your own consciousness to try to understand the consciousness of the entire world, because it is a different kind of consciousness.
To put it bluntly, you can use your human way to imagine your own consciousness, or use the way you think you know yourself best to understand your consciousness -- you understand what kind of person you are, your views on things, your ideas and beliefs, what your consciousness is like. This is perfectly normal. But do not use this method to understand the consciousness of the Earth, and you cannot use this method to understand the consciousness of an atom. You can only understand your own kind of consciousness -- as what you call "you," you use one method to understand your own consciousness, but this method is only useful for yourself in the present moment.
As your consciousness upgrades, your perception of your own consciousness may also change. What does "perception of your own consciousness" mean? For example, in the past you thought you only had one consciousness, in the past you thought consciousness was a product of the brain, in the past you thought consciousness was just some kind of thing. Then you discover that consciousness can actually have many kinds, that consciousnesses are interconnected, that consciousness has versions, and so on -- these are all your perceptions of yourself. And when you go to understand the consciousness of the world, you can use other methods, and you should use other methods. At this point you can no longer apply human consciousness as a template.
This is a mistake we humans often make: we are always accustomed to using one mode of consciousness, substituting our understanding of one kind of consciousness into our speculation or guessing about other consciousnesses, and then you wonder whether the consciousness of the Earth is also like this, whether the consciousness of an atom is also like this. You are actually humanizing all of them. But it is not human -- if it were human, it would look like a human, and it would not look like an Earth or look like an atom. It is not human, so do not keep using human consciousness to speculate about it. Then you ask, how do I understand it? He says you should try to use other ways to understand the consciousness of the world.
Viewing the World from Inner Structure
At 9:35 he began to pause. Rob added that scientists do not know how many species exist on Earth, only that their total number is probably in the billions. Then Seth continued:
If you used a different way to understand, you would still have an orderly universe, but within it there would be a completely different understanding of the nature of identity ... one that emphasized a conscious, interconnected subjective communication, which formed other kinds or patterns of subjectivity and psychological continuity.
This passage may be a bit hard to understand. He was continuing from the previous sentence: do not use your human consciousness to understand the consciousness of other species, and still less can you understand the consciousness of the whole world; you have to use another way to understand it. Okay, now you use another way to understand the consciousness of the whole world. Then what? You still come to a conclusion: this world is still orderly, still has a structure, still has an inner regularity. For example, like Seth, you will conclude that the universe still has basic laws. Having laws means having order and regularity; even if you have only one law it is still a law, let alone if you produce eleven laws.
Now from the perspective of another consciousness, using another method, you still arrive at the same conclusion: this world is still orderly. But although you explore this world through the inner structure, you still conclude that the inner universe or the inner world is also orderly; this inner universe actually contains the outer universe, because the outer universe is a materialization of the inner universe, a manifested version of it. And at this point, you have one biggest difference from merely studying the outer universe or outer structure: you gain a completely different understanding of the nature of your identity.
What is this different understanding? When you only study the outer universe, you separate yourself from the universe. You think that the universe exists objectively, and that you, as a highly intelligent creature, are studying how the universe was born, what you are about, what the universe is about, and what you and the environment are about. But when you explore from the inner world, no matter from what angle you explore, you will also find that this inner world has its inner structure. The biggest difference is that you discover that your own sense of identity is intertwined with the environment in the whole universe. Inwardly there are links between them, and if you look from the outer structure, you cannot see these links. Only by passing through the inner structure and entering your inner world, your inner mental world, can you see their links—they are in conscious communication.
Then he says, "formed subjectivity." What does that mean? If there is an orderly universe, then there is objectivity. But you are able to see its subjectivity as well. Why is there subjectivity? Because you and your environment have close conscious communication; you are influenced by your subjectivity, and the environment around you is also influenced by your subjectivity. So what seems to you to be an orderly, objective universe is actually formed by the interaction between your inner subjectivity and it. This is the first point you did not see before, when you studied the outer world.
The second point is that you can also see other kinds or patterns of your psychological continuity. What does psychological continuity mean? There are several meanings here. One is that no matter how many times you have died, that thing you call "you" has always existed in your inner world—this is a psychological continuity. You can die and return to life; this return refers to reincarnation, and your psychology develops continuously. Then those probable versions of you, although while you are alive you do not know that they are connected, after death you discover that they are just different versions of yourself—this is also a psychological continuity.
What is psychological continuity? Let me give a vivid example and you will understand easily. You are an actor who has played many roles. Today you act in a period drama, tomorrow in an urban drama; in that play you play a son, in this play you play a father. You shuttle back and forth between different roles, and no matter which role you switch into, you have a psychological continuity—you still know which one is you. Although as soon as you enter the production and play that role, you get deeply into the role, acting with tears and genuine emotion, once you leave the set, get in the car to another production, and enter a new role, you enter the new role again. But it is not that you are no longer yourself when you change roles; you are still that actor. Do different roles affect the psychology of you as the actor? They do. Having played them and not having played them are of course different. But no matter how much they affect you, you still know you are still that actor, and you will not fail to know who you are just because you played that role. This is psychological continuity.
But in the inner world, no matter whether you appear as a probable self, a reincarnational self, or in some other way, you can understand that this is you; in an instant you know that it is still that you. That psychological continuity is the thing you call "you"; it is your cognition and identification with your sense of self-identity. At this time you no longer identify with the physical body; you know that it is only a role, only one reincarnation. You identify more with that inner psychological continuity beyond the physical body. Just as after an actor has played ten roles, those ten roles still live in his consciousness, live in his experience, and live in his inner psychology. Finally, the psychologies of these ten roles, together with the psychology of the actor himself, form a kind of psychological continuity. You can see that this psychological continuity has other versions, other kinds, other patterns—different yous, different states, different reincarnational yous, counterparts, probable yous, and so on, all of them are you.
Personality and Entity
This new kind of cognition, this expansion or insight into your sense of self-identity, leads to what is called the existence of personality, or the constitution of what is called the entity. Here he says personality and entity are similar. What is personality? What is entity? It is that identity that remains you no matter how many reincarnations you go through. You may play a beggar for a while, a thug for a while, a criminal for a while, a compassionate Buddha for a while, a king for a while — no matter what you play, it is still you. No matter how many times you reincarnate, it is still you. That thing which is you is what is called your personality. And you can also call it entity; either name works.
They can follow different routes than your own to perceive their own identity, and in their own way, they also, like you, contribute to the formation of your universe.
They have their own ways and follow their own routes. For example, he reincarnates into the Ming dynasty, and in that era of the Ming dynasty, in that world, they make their contribution in their own form — say, he is a general. Or in the Song dynasty he becomes some military commander. Why do we say it is a different identity, a different route, a different time and space?
Do you think the Ming dynasty is in the same time and space as you? Clearly not. From a certain angle, it seems as though we are in the same world — it is just that he is in ancient times and we are in modern times, we are on one timeline, and the space in which we occur is all one space, only the time is different. And then you think you are in one space, one space-time system. But actually, do you think you and the you of the Ming dynasty are in the same world? You two are not in the same world at all. Remember this point: the first sentence of this session says that you can only perceive your world from your own perspective.
So what this means is that within your own reality, right now in 2022, within this reality, you make your contribution to your world — and so-called contribution means mutual influence. You have a psychological connection with your environment; you have an influence on your environment; you are creating your world. That you of the Ming dynasty creates his world in the Ming dynasty. Each of them has a different life and different experiences, and experiences them in their own way.
The Number of Species Is Unreliable
Seth spoke the following passage very slowly:
Your calculations of the number of species are extremely unreliable. You say there are billions of species, all of which are unreliable. You only acknowledge as living those lives that fall within a certain range of attention. You objectify and classify... drawing boundaries between self and non-self, between organisms and their inorganic environment.
You only acknowledge as living those lives that fall within a certain range of attention. You only pay attention to those you can observe, those you can see, and you feel those are alive; those things you consider dead, in fact they are also alive. You objectify and classify -- first of all, objectification itself is wrong. Why? Because you yourself are subjective, and your environment is related to your subjectivity. If you feel something is alive, you endow it with life, and it has life; if you feel it is dead, then it is dead.
You classify them, dividing them into organic and inorganic. All inorganic matter, according to the current scientific classification, is dead. But science is also discovering some breakthrough things -- things humans cannot understand. Some inorganic matter has later been found to possess life characteristics and life phenomena similar to organic matter, and science cannot understand it either.
Drawing boundaries between organisms and their inorganic environment. The environment is inorganic, though of course it also includes some organic matter -- for example, plants are organic, but here the environment refers to land, stones, rocks, air, water, things considered inorganic. Between this organism and the environment, you draw a boundary: the environment is lifeless, the organism is alive. Then you say the species of this human world -- so-called species means only those with life are called species, those without life are called things -- your division of living species is far too arbitrary. You think these things are alive, and then you arbitrarily believe that all inorganic matter has no life, that only organic matter has life. On your part this is extremely arbitrary, not open to discussion or questioning.
So there are psychological patterns that completely escape your attention.
There are psychological patterns you have not noticed -- these psychological patterns are different versions of life consciousness. Because they do not follow the traditional rules you have established, they are different from you. You have identified and established your rules, but the world does not exist according to human standards; others naturally have their own ways.
These psychological patterns combine the things you classify.
They combine the things you classify -- you think this one has life, that one has no life, and when they are combined, you cannot tell whether it has life or not. Very interesting.
Hidden Psychological Values and Psychological Beings
So he says:
You have hidden psychological values or psychological lives.
This is one of the key points he wants to make in this session.
They combine attributes of the environment and attributes of their own nature in ways that you do not know.
He combines those things that you consider lifeless with his own attributes, forming something new -- this is mainly due to that psychological value you have not noticed. Maybe you cannot understand what it means, so let me give an example, and then you will probably understand.
For example, Dream of the Red Chamber1 was originally called The Story of the Stone. That stone itself, it is just a stone, and according to human terms it is lifeless. But in that story, it is a precious jade, and eventually it gains spirituality. After it gains spirituality, does it not transform into something like a human, reincarnating into the human world and becoming Jia Baoyu? Lin Daiyu is the same principle -- she also does not have human life, she is a blade of grass. A stone and a blade of grass -- a stone, according to human cognition, is lifeless, it is environment. But when it combines with Jia Baoyu's attributes, it becomes a precious jade, and then it has life.
We also have this kind of perception in our real lives. We buy a piece of jewelry, it is lifeless, but after a master consecrates it, it has life, it becomes a kind of protective amulet, as if it can protect you. Many women say that my jadeite can be nurtured, and the more you nurture it, the more lustrous it becomes, and it will change. For example, jadeite of relatively good quality -- the green color inside will spread on its own. As you wear it and nourish it, the color will also change. It really does change, this is certain. Although underground it might need tens of thousands or even millions of years to change, once a person wears it, it can indeed change at a visible speed -- not that you watch it and it changes, but after you wear it for a few years, ten years, eight years, five or six years, you will find that it really does change. But at this time you are uncertain, because you did not take very clear photographic evidence when you first bought it, and then look at it again a few years later. But when you try to prove it in this way, something magical happens: when you try to gather evidence in this way, you find that it no longer changes. When you try to verify it using the material environment, it stops changing.
But everyone who has worn jadeite, who has worn bracelets, after wearing them for a period of time, will tell you that it really does change. But he can only swear to you with absolute conviction, yet he cannot produce sufficient evidence. He can only say, "Look, when I bought it back then it was like this, this patch of green was like this, and now look, the green has grown to here" -- this is absolutely real. But if you say, show me the photo from when you bought it, he cannot produce it either. Maybe some people do keep some photos, but most of what I have heard and seen have no photos, yet he absolutely swears to you that it really has changed.
I give this example so that you can probably understand what I am trying to say. What he wants to talk about now is these things -- those things in our ordinary lives that we consider deeply mysterious, those gods, those spirits, those protective amulets. Do you understand what Seth is trying to say here?
It is the environment plus an attribute of the self. So how does this come about? Seth says it very clearly: it is hidden psychological values or psychological beings. The thing you call "you" has many versions, and your environment or the world around you is the same -- it also has many versions. Between these different versions, they are internally interconnected, and to use his original word, they are "entangled" with one another. These entangled things, these psychologically continuous psychological structures -- psychological continuity -- will form a kind of existence that is beyond human cognition, or that we can only vaguely sense.
If you ask whether those protective amulets help people, many people will tell you they help, they really help. For example, with jadeite, they will say jadeite wards off disaster. When you wear a bracelet and it accidentally breaks, it is often blocking a disaster. This is something many people who wear bracelets believe. Because the bracelet has very high hardness but is very brittle, under normal wear it generally will not break. Its hardness is nine, basically second only to diamond in hardness, but it is brittle. So many people who wear jadeite have this feeling -- including crystal, including various other jewelry -- if you believe it can protect you, it really seems to be protecting you, it really seems to serve that protective function. This is a kind of psychological, inner-world experience. Can you produce any evidence? You cannot produce evidence. But the person involved will tell you, as if recounting a miraculous experience, about one particular incident -- a certain piece of jewelry, a certain protective amulet once saved his life, or saved him from danger. Can you produce evidence? You cannot produce evidence either. It is this kind of thing.
They would appear to be nature spirits.
The feeling they give you is like nature spirits, this spirit and that spirit, this god and that god, trees have essences, flower spirits, tree spirits, all kinds.
As from your viewpoint, you would necessarily interpret them in such a fashion.
This is your interpretation of them. You think they are some kind of spirit, but what are they really? They are a kind of hidden psychological value. They have their own psychological value fulfillment, it is just not within the scope of our cognition, not within the scope of what we can understand. If you ask whether they truly exist, of course they truly exist. But they are only a kind of psychological state existence that is as real as we are. Relative to us, they are an invisible existence, a hidden existence; we are material existences, and they are an inner existence.
They would obviously be your psychological relatives.
They are your psychological relatives, so you do not feel they are unfamiliar. But they are also different from you, so you will feel they are some kind of spirit, some kind of god, some kind of protective amulet.
But with their own time scale, their own language, and psychological alliances.
Speaking of this, what he discusses in this session can explain many people's puzzling questions. Does the evil spirit actually exist or not? Does the ghost exist or not? Is the ghost raised by "raising a little ghost" really able to make you rich, but one day it will turn on you? Is it real? Including casting curses, making gu, raising gu -- all of these. Many people think these are feudal superstitions. If you use a wrong cognition, then they are feudal superstitions; but if you look at it from another angle, what Seth discusses in this session is exactly these things. He explains that phenomenon from another angle. But the level he speaks from is far higher than that -- he is not necessarily talking about raising little ghosts, casting curses, or those things, or worshipping folk gods, or requesting talismans. Talismans are the same -- writing some things on paper -- does paper itself have life? No. Write a few characters on it with a pen, and it has its function, "Heavenly spirits, earthly spirits," just like that.
Do you say it is effective? Of course it is effective. When you believe in it, in certain specific situations, it is effective. If you say it is not effective, then it is not effective, because scientists cannot verify that it is effective. You say these Taoist priests, these people who draw talismans, let science verify it, let us do an experiment -- how do you do it? Science does not even acknowledge the existence of those ghosts and spirits, so how do you set up the experiment? You design an experimental scenario to see how this talisman works, but you cannot design it. Do you say it is useless? For some people it works. Some people get strange illnesses that folk tradition calls "having picked up something dirty," and then these so-called Taoist priests cure them, and the symptoms disappear. Do you say it is ineffective? It is effective -- how did it disappear? It just disappeared. It is these things.
What Seth discusses in this session is these things. Is it not quite interesting? He does not speak as thoroughly as I do, but he is saying the same thing. He says that to us, they are actually a psychological relative of ours. You may find it hard to understand, so I can only say that it is another version of human consciousness -- that makes it easier to understand. It is a version close to human consciousness, but it is not our human consciousness. Does it truly exist? It truly exists. But do you say it is frightening? It is not frightening. Do you think your consciousness is frightening? Of course not. Then is its consciousness frightening? Its consciousness is not frightening either. It is enough if you can understand it this way.
Do not think that as long as it is not my human consciousness, anything unfamiliar is frightening. If you have that kind of fear, then everything is frightening to you -- as long as it is not the same kind as you, as long as you cannot control it, you find it frightening. How could it be frightening? Just like the question that came up when I was communicating and answering questions with everyone a couple of days ago --
Relatives of Consciousness
Seth uses the word "relatives" to describe these other kinds of consciousness that are different from us yet similar. He means a kind of "expressive relationship," an expression on the level of consciousness or psychological activity. These different kinds of consciousness coexist with those we ordinarily acknowledge in material life.
He says:
These do indeed coexist with those consciousnesses you acknowledge within the structures of your material life.
They are simply different versions. When you dream, you can often make contact with the expressions of these consciousnesses. Sometimes someone appears to you in a dream, precisely because consciousness contact in dreams is free of the limitations we have while awake. But this is not a matter of them coming to communicate with you, or you going to communicate with them. He says, rather, that during sleep:
The conventional attributes you have learned are relaxed to some degree, or abandoned.
Once your outer senses relax, the inner senses gradually become active in dreams, and you can see what you ordinarily cannot see, perceive what you ordinarily cannot perceive. They have always been there; it is just that in dreams you become aware of them, you feel them.
Seth uses a very vivid analogy: "You see the light from around the corner." That light is something you cannot see directly, blocked by the street corner; you can only see the glow cast from behind it. You cannot see the light source directly, only its expression. The different psychological versions, the different versions of consciousness, are that light source, and you can only make contact with these expressions. The core point is this: you are not the same kind of consciousness; you are relatives, differing in frequency or version of consciousness, but that does not prevent you from feeling its expression.
When you see a family of consciousness — a species — that is something no normal evolutionary explanation can possibly account for. Right now we cannot even explain our own species, let alone these gods, spirits, ghosts, and strange beings. And the existence of these consciousnesses implies communication at all levels of existence — it safeguards:
Not only the genetic references necessary to your own humanity, but also the combinations of other organizational forms that exist adjacent to you and are connected with you.
Earlier Seth said that within our human genes there are bird genes and fish genes, each serving as backup for the others. The same is true among different versions of consciousness: they automatically form a combination, each within the other, so Seth calls them "relatives."
Human Misunderstandings and the Open Past
People often misunderstand this relationship, and so they make up all kinds of legends -- benevolent spirits, evil spirits, monsters, and all sorts of strange creatures in folklore. Actually, these are all different versions of consciousness, different versions of psychological activity. Whatever you define them as, that is what they appear to be in your eyes. But the key point is that if they are too far from human consciousness -- if they are completely different versions of consciousness -- you would not even have the opportunity to come into contact with their manifestations.
Seth says that once, in your history, there was a time:
You faced these other compositions with a different view, saw many similarities between their behavior and your own, and in some specific way, in some characteristic way, at least perceived experiences that aroused your response and recognition.
At that time you faced them directly, without stigmatizing them. Those strange people in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, the various spirits in ancient mythology -- all of them were meaningful. There was a period when human beings were much more open to whatever could enter the circle of consciousness, and they acknowledged the existence of everything they could perceive. You did not have such fine divisions -- this is human and that is divine, this is ghost and that is spirit, this is living and that is lifeless. On the contrary:
You included such expressions of consciousness among yourselves... and accepted a relationship of comradeship.
Seth's choice of words is interesting -- he calls it "comradeship." Because to some degree, with a shift of focus, you can see different versions of humanity. Human beings do not have the ability to make energy connections with the environment, but these consciousnesses can. They combine their own attributes with the attributes of the environment and form new attributes. Through them, you can see abilities that human beings could also develop. That stage was animism -- everything has a spirit. India today still holds this belief, that everything has a deity, thousands upon thousands of gods, all given names.
At that time you would feel:
In the world you had other brothers and sisters.
There is not only human consciousness, but also close relative versions of it -- very much like you and yet not like you. They combine the contents of the universe in their own way, merging themselves with the environment -- so dragons can command the seas and summon wind and rain, Sun Wukong is like a human but not a human, and Zhu Bajie too.
These species simply cannot appear within the rules of evolutionary theory. But occasionally we find traces of them. There was once a private museum that housed species never seen by humans, collected from all over the world, including some diminutive humanoid beings -- not dwarfs, but beings of normal proportion yet only a few dozen centimeters tall. DNA testing found that their genetic similarity to humans was only 30%2, with the remaining 70% completely different. The genetic difference between humans and pigs is usually only 5%, and with monkeys only 1% or 2%3. This small humanoid creature's difference from humans is already too great to be explained by evolutionary theory. Such things happen from time to time, but when science cannot explain them, it refuses to acknowledge their existence -- you can find many such cases if you search.
When it manifests in our reality world, you perceive it as real; when it does not manifest, it exists in the form of soul, ghost, or spirit. But the premise is:
Unless you relax your usual habits of perception and behavior.
Otherwise you cannot sense its existence at all.
Relaxing Perception and Boundaries
Seth said, in any case:
Contact between you often occurs.
It happens in dreams, in alterations of ordinary focus, in art. When your mind wanders, when you are half asleep, when your mental state is not at its best, when your conscious focus is loose, they appear. Many people see these things in such states. But when you wake and enter the more precise and clearer focus of physical reality:
You stay with this view of your own human consciousness, quite arbitrarily shutting off the other elements completely, in order to frame clearly and define the boundaries of this physical order.
When your daytime thinking is sharp, this boundary is clear, and they cannot appear.
These consciousnesses unlike the human type, most of the time we feel they are "not concretely visible" -- you can sense there is a spirit, a ghost, but you cannot see it. Yet you were once able to bring them into the range of perception.
Seth paused here for a long time -- in fact, he sat on the sofa with eyes closed for so long that Rob thought she had fallen asleep. Then Seth continued:
But you end your classifications where you end them, preferring to regard the human being as the crown of creation.
You classify according to the dimensions of perception, and so you draw a line somewhere: the material world is real, and what cannot be perceived does not exist. But on other levels of activity, you still maintain that friendship, and those levels remain open. When we discuss the topic of dreams and the dream world, those levels must be taken into account.
Jane's dictation ended here. Next came the private session portion. Rob said in his notes that he considered the main body of this session to be truly one of the best, and that the inner material she delivered for herself was equally good.
Jane's Limitations and Fears
In a private session, Seth said that Jane had recently been of great help to Rob. But in his discussion with Ruburt about his own situation, he did not touch on that material for very good reasons, because Ruburt was not yet ready to face it. Ruburt had sensed to some degree those cousins of consciousness -- those ghosts and gods and spirits, those environments that seem real yet not real, and these possible experiences extended even further. And he decided he had to get involved very carefully. Clearly, to some extent this feeling weakened his spontaneity, because he very, very much did not want to let himself enter those realms of gods and ghosts. This restraint, this limitation on consciousness, was a kind of inhibition of his abilities.
Seth said that under the limitations ordinarily placed on consciousness, this caution is quite natural. Let me give an analogy: you go to a wildlife safari park, where there are gate after gate. You drive in and stay among the lions and tigers, but you are inside the car. Now suppose there is no car, and the gates open -- you absolutely would not dare go in. No matter how much others tell you there is no danger, that the tigers are fake and the lions are illusions, you still would not dare go in. That inner fear would be aroused to the extreme. So the core point is this: you need to reach a state where there is no fear in your heart before you explore these things. If there is still fear, you must first adjust your belief system, through the Seth material -- The Nature of Personal Reality, The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, and so on -- and gradually come to understand that there is nothing to fear in those things. Remove the fear from the root of your beliefs, and only then can you walk into that realm. Otherwise the experience will be very unpleasant, because the fear is still there, and it will amplify it.
So we can see that Jane's limitation was very natural. Next comes Seth's assurance to Jane:
Ruburt, no matter what realm you explore, you are guaranteed and safe.
This applies not only to Ruburt, but to everyone. Our conscious level is absolutely safe. No matter where you go, you carry its protection and safety with you, and that is a natural grace -- there is no need to practice any special body-protection skills. That is a characteristic of any kind of consciousness, not something unique to human consciousness. Any consciousness has a kind of self-protection, a grace from nature. Consciousness cannot be directly annihilated, erased, assaulted, occupied, invaded, or torn apart by another consciousness. Consciousness is inherently self-protective; this is a basic characteristic of consciousness itself.
Seth said:
Its protection and effectiveness are forever guaranteed.
This protection is permanently effective. No matter where you go, your psychological stance is respected. As a conscious entity, a personality, a spiritual being, you are protected and respected at every level of consciousness you explore, and your uniqueness will not be destroyed. The only thing that can destroy you is the fear in your own heart. Only the fear in your own heart can destroy you. When you are afraid, nothing anyone says will help -- just like some people with paranoia, who feel that life is full of danger everywhere and always think someone is out to harm them. For normal people, life is not dangerous, but for them it is, and fear is the only thing that can hinder you.
Seth said that in the next session he would talk more about this topic in a personal way, but that some statements would help Ruburt:
And help him expand his inner circle of acquaintances with those friendly colleagues.
Those friendly colleagues belong to other categories, not the same kind as human consciousness, but they are still friendly colleagues. Jane could sense their existence, yet she did not dare explore or communicate with them, so she closed off her circle of friends.
Rob's Notes and Jane's Poems
Rob says that Jane's sense of those expressions of consciousness, and her very cautious response to her own inner knowing, were the clearest, most consistent signs he had seen over the years. Despite repeated assurances from Seth and him, she did not feel safe, wherever she was. This is also why she did not take part in television interviews or get involved with the media. On March 19, 19774, four years and eight months earlier, she drafted two untitled poems. Rob believed it was no coincidence that he discovered them just then. Those two poems have an emotional connection with the very long poem in the notes to Session 936, in which Jane felt like a half-dead shellfish on a beach. All three poems were consistent with not only her beliefs and emotions, but Rob's as well.
Rob says that if those three poems reflect Jane's deep fear of her abilities, they are also linked by her determination to work at developing that gift. Yet she still held on to her sense of direction. Unless Ruburt herself wanted to hold the sessions, nothing could have made her keep doing so for so long. Below, Rob transcribed these two poems by Jane.
This poem is difficult to explain logically. I will do my best to describe its imagery and mood for you.
The first poem:
If within my many seasons I have the angry roots and branches of winter A sexually unexplored wilderness Is a power Stranger, more primitive Than autumn's wild passion
"Winter's roots and branches" can be understood in relation to traditional Chinese medicine. Winter is the time for "storing." The kidneys govern storage and are the source of energy, like fire within water. If there is too much water and it is too cold, the fire cannot burn strongly, and a person's hands and feet become icy cold; if the fire is too strong and kidney water is insufficient, the person will have night sweats. The kidneys are the foundation of one's inborn constitution, something brought from the womb, an attribute the ego chooses when entering an incarnation. This is primal, the primal itself.
Continuing:
Ravaging yet glorious Orange-yellow and jasmine-colored leaves break off And drift everywhere
The autumn wind blows the leaves down. To others, it is a bleak autumn wind, but she finds it wild. Next:
Then let it be Primal, then primal If there are sexual urges, let there be sexual urges This is natural Like autumn's fury Emotions have their own reasons Within nature's deeper, wakeful awareness So I must have an unwavering direction Though the night flocks of my thoughts seem separate Each rides upon a primal power Carried away weightlessly Then I am with them
When a strong autumn wind blows, leaves fly all over the sky, seemingly without direction, tossed about by the gale. But those leaves actually do have a direction. They all ride upon the power of the great tree's roots. Do not be misled by our wild flight; our power comes from that root. Jane hopes to stay on an unwavering course: not to delve too deeply into those mysterious realms, but to remain rooted in the primal nature of the physical body, that winter root, that sexually unexplored wilderness.
Let me be protected in this way Though my turbulent journey carries me Over the tossing treetops For the sky above will enfold everything safely
However high the leaves fly, they cannot fly beyond the sky. Between heaven and earth, you are safely protected. Even if you fly wildly about, there is no need to be afraid.
The second poem:
If I have become strange This leg bending wildly Arms half bent, forearms half bent No longer able to walk straight An exile in the body A monster of the mind
Her body is failing, but her mind is still very powerful. These are her own psychic powers.
All right, no more apologies To people, to me This is how I am
Continuing:
When you ram your head against the sky And the sky gives way And you are tempted to retreat Suspicious and confused Like a frightened animal treated kindly You growl, pretending to lick or bite You yourself are too frightened Even to bite your tail
You ram your head against the sky, wanting to explore the truth of the universe, but the sky moves aside. No matter how you ram it, you cannot break through. You want to break out of the cage, but you have not broken through. At this point, you become suspicious and confused: there clearly seems to be a ceiling, yet I cannot break through it; whenever I hit it, it retreats. This is what "the sky gives way" means. Then you are tempted and want to keep ramming it. You are being treated kindly: no matter how you ram it, you cannot kill yourself, and the sky will not come and hit your head. It is yielding to you. But this yielding makes Jane very angry. She growls, wanting to bite, to lick. She should actually feel grateful, grateful for the universe's protection and love for her, but she cannot feel it. Instead, she is angry and does not dare wag her tail. She is very conflicted.
The second part of the second poem:
So now it is time to say all right And pick up that magical skull to try That strange new nourishment
The "magical skull" symbolizes the wisdom of the brain that explores truth, or psychic powers. She stops ramming the sky, puts the magical skull away, retreats into everyday life, and accepts a strange kind of nourishment. Why is it strange? Because it is not the nourishment she truly wants.
I have circled it for too long Sniffing with my nose And I have never said thank you
She has never said thank you to her own psychic powers.
The third part:
Someone magically unfastened my leash And I was so afraid I pretended it was still there Tighter than before
Someone unfastened her leash and told her she was free. But Jane did not dare leave. She pretended the leash was still there, and tighter than before. That person said, "Go on, you are free. Haven't you noticed? Why don't you hurry and run off, like any happy animal? You have been tethered for so long. Why don't you pursue freedom?" But Jane said:
Don't lie, I won't listen to you
She feels the leash is still there: you are lying to me. Her abilities are already very strong, yet she remains bound by the most primitive views of dualistic opposition: good and bad, right and wrong, guilty and innocent. The limits of her understanding constrain the development of her abilities. She knows this perfectly well herself, yet writes it very clearly in her poem.
The end of the poem:
That was years ago, I would not go Now I am trembling, I am tired And I can no longer break free I am tethered alone in the black wind I keep tugging Not there, yet so sincerely felt
She keeps tugging against that invisible leash. A visible leash can be cut with a single snip of the scissors, but an invisible leash is what is frightening, because it really feels so real. So:
So I am making imaginary scissors To cut this dream leash into a thousand silver fragments They melt before eyes that are both dreaming and real
Using imaginary scissors, she cuts the invisible leash into countless silver fragments, which dissolve in the dream and before her actual eyes. She has cut that leash and is free.
Through Jane's poems, if you can truly understand them, you will know that she has a very deep inner spirituality. But honestly, her poems are too short and concise. Perhaps all truly spiritual poets write poems like this. Ordinary readers really struggle to understand what is within her through her poems, so no one has ever called Jane a great poet or a well-known poet. Her poems are like fragments of dreams, one here, another there, without expressing all her inner feelings and experiences. This is a great pity: if someone could rewrite Jane's poems and bring out their imagery and mood, they would certainly be beautiful works that could deeply inspire people.
Rob could understand her poems, so he often inserted notes into them, because he thought they were so well written. But ordinary readers might simply skip over them.
注释与核实
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Source: Wikipedia, "Dream of the Red Chamber" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_of_the_Red_Chamber) ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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According to Mike's original words, "the genetic difference between humans and pigs is usually only 5%, and with monkeys only 1% or 2%"; upon verification, it should be "using the same coding sequence comparison standard, the average difference between humans and pigs is about 10.63%, with rhesus monkeys about 3.18%, and with marmosets about 5.35%; the difference ratio depends on the specific species and comparison standard." (Source: Jagadesan et al., "Evaluation of Five Mammalian Models for Human Disease Research Using Genomic and Bioinformatic Approaches," 2023, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10452283/) ↩
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Source: Robert F. Butts, "Dreams, 'Evolution,' and Value Fulfillment: Volume Two" (https://nowdictation.com/q/book%3Adeavf2%2Bsession%3A938%2Bpsychological%2Btime/) ↩